Slowly, but surely, it's coming together.

Despite coming off a weekend in which they lost two games and had to mount a comeback to win another, Joe Hindelang says his Penn State baseball team is making the strides they need to make.

"I think for our team it takes between 15 and 20 games before I can figure out what we need to do to win," he said. "You have to figure out where guys are going to play, what the lineup should be and the pitching staff. Until then you are just tinkering and every guy has his shot."

Which explains the fresh names that appeared in the box score this weekend. Penn State lost the first game on Saturday 15-4 and got edged out in the nightcap by a 6-5 score. But the emergence of young pitchers like David Aardsma and Aaron Tressler gives the team hope going into a pivotal two-week period in which the team needs to find out which players will step up and be every-day players.

"It wasn't exactly surprising," Hindelang said of the two freshman hurlers. "But it's sooner than I expected. Now we can concentrate on getting the other rotation spots figured out."

Aardsma took the loss in the second game of the double header despite allowing just one run on four hits in two and two-thirds inning of work. The Nittany Lions came back from a 5-1 deficit and Aardsma carried the squad through to the ninth inning. After loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth, he struck out two batters before giving up the game-winning single.

"I got behind in the count and I had to throw a strike," Aardsma said. "He caught up to it, so he deserves a lot of credit.

"But I felt really comfortable up until then, and the guys really helped me out."

Tressler won his first collegiate game on Sunday when he threw four and a third innings of shutout relief, striking out five. Penn State again made a four-run comeback in the game and Mike DeRenzo's RBI double in the tenth made the score 7-6. Tressler shut the door on the Cavaliers.

"Tressler pitched above himself," Hindelang said. "He was so poised."

Another bright-spot on the weekend was the thawing of the Penn State bats. They managed just seven hits the first game of the series, but then rattled off 15 and 12 in the next two games. That from a team that entered the weekend hitting .156 and had scored just seven runs.

"It's was incredible important for us to hit the ball this weekend," Hindelang said. "We'd like to carry it over to Texas."

The Lions are preparing for a nine-day stay in the Longhorn State, where they will play ten games. Hindelang hopes that the team will be able to overcome some early season deficiencies by concentrating on baseball.

"They won't have to worry about school the next day or long bus rides," he said. "It's really a bonding trip where we become a team."

The Big Ten season gets underway March 23. The Lions' goal is to win the conference outright and host the championships.

To become a team that has a viable shot at doing that, the Lions need to battle through adversity, something they did twice this weekend with comebacks and clutch hitting.

"Every coach will tell you, including coach Paterno, that part of becoming a great team is having to comeback during close games," Hindelang said. "Until you can prove that you can do that, it's like an elephant sitting in your living room that nobody mentions."